3 or 4GB of memory in the SZ

I'm thinking of getting a single 2GB SODIMM ( http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=A0655397) to put in my SZ to bump it to 3GB of memory (4GB would be cost prohibitive). I'd have to take out one of my 1GB SODIMMs.

In theory this should "just work", but does anyone know if Sony put some weird constraint in BIOS or on the motherboard to not recognize more than 2GB of RAM?

 

Just out of curiosity, why would you do this? $793 is a tremendous amount of money to spend on memory, and I am wondering what you would need 3GB for that 2GB total wouldn't be suitable for - at least on something like the SZ.

 

VMWare and demoing. I need it for work. 2GB it creeps with a domain controller and 4 cluster nodes for SQL Server The DC if W2K is 128MB, and you are shortchanging SQL by giving it 384MB. Plus if you need to run Word, or do other stuff. It creeps.

3GB would solve the issue.

 

According to the Sony website, all SZ's are limited to 2GB maximum.

 

Specs are irrelevant. My JVC 741 said max of 768MB memory, but the 1GB SODIMM worked just fine giving me 1.25GB of memory. My Sharp said max of 1.5GB of memory, and that is the case because 512MB was soldered on the motherboard.

I suspect it is the same here, hence me making sure Sony didn't cripple the machine.

The S series (not SZ) was listed at 1GB for the longest time, but it was proven putting 2x1GB worked and gave you 2GB.

 

I wonder if that even applies to the Merom-based Sony SZ3xx series.

 

All laptops should support up to 4GB of RAM unless there is some physical reason (i.e. memory soldered onto the motherboard, BIOS restriction) since the architecture and the OS supports it.

So in theory the whole SZ series supports 4GB of RAM. My guess is that the RAM was so expensive, so they didn't even bother to test it.

 

I think there's also an issue with DDR2 being a dual channel configuration. In theory, the chipset will allow different size ram to work in the two slots but there is a performance penalty. I dont how much of a penalty you would take but this may diminish the returns on adding the extra 1gb stick. You may be better off sticking with 2gb (2x1gb) or biting the bullet and getting 4gb (2x 2gb) assuming that will work without a bios update from Sony.

 

Dual channel does not make a significant amount of performance enhancement for it to really matter. Running 1GB x 2 or one 2GB stick should not make a huge difference in performance(assuming latencies and timings are the same).

 

Putting 4GB of RAM in a notebook is obscene and impractical.
You're better off purchasing 2x 2GB sticks for a powerful desktop.

 

So far, are any 2GB memory compatible with the Vaio TX? If so which one?

 

Looks like nobody has taken the plunge to try those 2 gig sticks within the Sony machines.

Anyone working in a service shop here who owns an SZ or TX?

 

Well, considering the 2x1GB RAM I already have is 667 DDR 5300, and the 2GB chip is the same, my DDR is still in balance. With DDR the benefit is having 2 chips, not one as long as they are the same speed.

 

You're missing the point. It's 2 sticks - 2GB x 1, 1GB x 1. Not 2GB of RAM only.

 

UNless you're going to be my porter and schlep my 4GB Opteron box around with a monitor, it's not outrageous. Some people actually use more than 2GB of RAM. I do.

 

No, I'm not missing the point. My post was in reply to 3pod's post.

 

If you care only about the amount of RAM, mismatched sized modules will work fine. If you care also about performance, its recommended you use equal size modules in both slots. I'm sure if you do a search, there's plenty of information out there on how much a performance difference this will make. As in all cases, your real world performance will vary.

I know this doesn't answer the OP's orginal question but its an extra data point to consider.

 

Why is everyone bagging on 4GB of RAM? Anyone who actually uses Adobe Creative Suite 2 on Windows XP 64-bit can see the difference. Back in the day, folks once said 1MB of memory was obscene and impractical. In fact, the head of IBM at one point said, there is no reason for a person to have a computer in their home.

 

My favorite quote from IBM way back when...

"we believe tht there is potentially a global market for maybe five computers..."

...love that.


But I too think that 3-4gb is generally excessive. 1gb to be the good watermark, 2 if you want some future proofing. I have 750 in my current lappy, and I only rarely bounce off the top and end up swapping... and that's with a ton of development stuff open, a couple of office apps and maybe photoshop.

...not that some people don't actually require that size memory, they do, but those people are few and very far between.

 

For the vast majority of people 4 GB's is overkill if only because Windows XP [though technically capable in only the strictest sense] cannot effectively address 4 GB's.

4 GB's [as opposed to 2 GB's] doesn't even really help Adobe CS [it certainly won't make CS "faster"] because CS has terrible memory management.

When CS takes physical memory to open or manipulate an image the program will not release that memory even if you close out that image. So, after opening and manipulating 4, 5, maybe 10 images your physical memory is gone and you are now accessing your page file which is basically unusable as it is so slow.

The only way to get that physical memory back is to close CS and open it again.

The only thing that 4 GB's will do that 2 GB's won't is allow you to open and manipulate a couple more images before you have to shut down and restart anyway.

 

Not in the IT world. I can barely live on less than 2GB for what I do. Running multiple VMs in VMWare Workstation and running the other apps I need is much easier now that my SZ has 3GB of memory.

 

Well, actually very few people in IT run VMWare. I'm IT too, and it wouldn't even be 5% of people in IT needing to run VMWare or equivalent. When I was running it last year to get some environments going, I was the first in the crew to use it. Not too many people need virtualised PC's, even in IT... well, it's probably more like "most people in IT don't know how groovy virtualised PC's can be".

...but I will support that extra RAM is uber-handy to run this beast and it's guest OS's. Being able to give out 512-768mb chunks per guest is sweet.


But because most people don't need it, it still means that 3-4 gig of RAM really is excessive for 95% of people.


VMWare is just one of those exceptions. You're part of where I said "...not that some people don't actually require that size memory, they do, but those people are few and very far between."

 

FenderP: it also seems like you've thrown in a bunch of posts into this thread answering your own questions, even saying that specs are irrelevant... so pop them RAM chips in the sucker and just tell us how it goes already!

 

I did - see http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=81422

 

Thanks FenderP,

You've answered a question a lot of us have been curious about for the longest time. The RAM has been too prohibitively expensive for most of us to risk the purchase.

 

has anyone tried the 2gb stick in the tx yet?

 

Thankfully, after I get my SZ370P/C sometime in the next week or so, I won't be running Windows XP. I'll be running Windows XP 64-bit (although I don't think I'll be upgrading to the 128GB limit). I also won't be running Adobe CS. I'll be running Adobe CS2 which can allocate up to 3 gigs to image data, another .7 gigs to plugins and another 2 gigs as a cache for the scratch disk (I don't think I'll go up to the 6 gig limit either). Unfortunately, I only dare to go up to the 4 gigs for now so I won't be maxing out on either system.

Anyone dare to go up to 6 or 8 gigs on a laptop?

I'm thinking about actually pushing my VMWare server at home up to either 16 or 32 gigs of memory.

 

How big is the company you do IT for? I do IT too.

VMWare is great if you're going to get into enterprise systems. Especially if you start getting into blade server systems. Being able to move whole servers from one blade to another based on overall system load is handy.

And just because the people who do require that much memory are few and far between doesn't mean that they have no value. Just look at the business world. Corporations make up a very small percentage of the number of businesses but they make up a very large percentage of the GDP.

 

No one makes 200-pin SODIMMS bigger than 2GB/stick that I've seen. 240-pin maybe, but that won't fit in the SZ.

The Intel mobile architecture I think maxes out at 4GB.

XP 64-bit is nice, but I'm not sure how the Sony utils and drivers will work since they're all 32-bit.

 

Well, Sony tech support gave me the excuse that Vista is not out yet when I asked about drivers for Vista. They said it would be available only then. They can't give me the same excuse that 64-bit Windows XP isn't out because it is. He he. The "Designed for Windows XP" logo on their laptop doesn't have an asterisk on the logo that denotes 32-bit Windows XP only. Maybe they should? LOL. I dunno. I've always been a tinkerer. I won't jump in right away. I'll probably dual-boot for a while like I do now with Vista after finding out certain programs don't work.

As far as Intel maxing out at 4GB, you're totally right on that. I guess we'll have to see what Intel's next mobile platform codenamed, "Santa Rosa," brings to the table. From the rumblings I heard, HSDPA and 800MHz FSB.

 

This is why I didn't get all wowed by C2D. Is it faster? Sure, but the SZ with the standard CD is just fine for me right now. First laptop in years I'm not jonesing for something else because it actually does what I need it to do with no real constraints!

The real improvement is going to be with Santa Rosa with the 800MHz FSP and better cache and CPU speed. That will be a worthy upgrade. The bump to C2D wasn't worth it in my book. If I still only had a P-M and didn't have the SZ, I would have bought the C2D over the CD.

 

Doesn't the T7x00 already have 4MB of cache? As long as you don't get the T5x00 Core 2 Duo's out now, you won't get the smaller 2MB cache.

I guess I'm just falling into the WinTel trap of being curious to test their latest and greatest bloatware. Groove Manager 2007 and Groove Relay 2007 are both part of Microsoft's next Office suite and only come in 64-bit flavors. There will not be a 32-bit version for either.

 

It's not worth it to me to spend another $3k just to get a new laptop just for the T7x00 processors. Yes, you get 4MB of cache but that's not worth the $ for me, especially since the SZ90 doesn't support it natively and SOny isn't going to patch my BIOS to support it.

The 4MB + the 800MHz will be a much better combo, since in the SZ, you can't even use the full bandwidth of 667MHz memory to begin with.

 

Is that because of the memory getting limited to 533MHz?